Help How to tell reality from a psychosis episode?

[Politecat]

I've had several psychosis episodes, but I can only tell after they've occured, I've been off of meditations for about a week now. And I'm more than positive one of these days one of my episodes will cause me to CTB (nothing bad but still) How can I tell for sure when I'm having an episode? (I'm not going to the hospital, nor am I going to tell anyone I actually know about this)

 

[Smilla]

I posted about this in off topic just today.

Someone mentioned "depersonalization", which I identified with because I have never experienced hallucinations or a break with reality.

Do you have vivid dreams or nightmares? I wonder if these go hand in hand with psychosis?

 

[Politecat]

I posted about this in off topic just today.

Someone mentioned "depersonalization", which I identified with because I have never experienced hallucinations or a break with reality.

Do you have vivid dreams or nightmares? I wonder if these go hand in hand with psychosis?

I've had vivid dreams during and a bit after going off of meditations, I was on Prozac and Librium. As for nightmares, I haven't really had one in a while. Or at least not that I can think of.

 

[Stillnotsure]

You try to ground yourself in reality to tell...

Grab something you can smell, focus on it.
Grab something you can touch, interesting texture, focus on it.
Grab something you can taste, dwell on it.
Grab something you can hear, listen to it again.
Now focus on what you can see, is it real, describe every detail.

 

[wxtyubidi7y]

I've had several psychosis episodes, but I can only tell after they've occured, I've been off of meditations for about a week now. And I'm more than positive one of these days one of my episodes will cause me to CTB (nothing bad but still) How can I tell for sure when I'm having an episode? (I'm not going to the hospital, nor am I going to tell anyone I actually know about this)

Here are some things you could ask yourself - are you suddenly having a significantly different outlook on things or having thoughts that are very different to the kind you have had during periods of 'stability'? Does it feel like you've started noticing important patterns in the world that other people wouldn't understand? Have you recently become quite suspicious about things that wouldn't normally occur to you?

Ideally if you feel like these sorts of things might be happening you could find someone to talk to honestly about your thoughts and get some feedback. The longer you leave it the harder it is to still realise that this kind of thing may be abnormal and would benefit from assistance/treatment.

Edit: in general it is extremely hard for most people to recognise when they are experiencing psychosis. I have had three psychotic episodes and I know that I need long-term medicine to stop them from happening (or to reduce their frequency).

 

[Endless]

This is a tough one since psychosis is by definition a break from reality.if you recognise its happening is it really psychosis ? the last time I had delusional thinking I understood it sounded crazy but there is nothing anyone could have done to convince me it wasnt real because it was my reality at the time. So I think iif you compare to your 'baseline' your 'normal' you can sometimes identify thoughts/feelings/experiences as possibly psychotic but it's purely intellectual and doesn't change that you are experiencing it as reality

 

[Politecat]

You try to ground yourself in reality to tell...

Grab something you can smell, focus on it.
Grab something you can touch, interesting texture, focus on it.
Grab something you can taste, dwell on it.
Grab something you can hear, listen to it again.
Now focus on what you can see, is it real, describe every detail.

That's pretty smart, I'll try that next time.

 

[Politecat]

This is a tough one since psychosis is by definition a break from reality.if you recognise its happening is it really psychosis ? the last time I had delusional thinking I understood it sounded crazy but there is nothing anyone could have done to convince me it wasnt real because it was my reality at the time. So I think iif you compare to your 'baseline' your 'normal' you can sometimes identify thoughts/feelings/experiences as possibly psychotic but it's purely intellectual and doesn't change that you are experiencing it as reality

Yeah, my friends were the one to point out that I was hearing stuff, because we were just hanging out and I just became overly aggressive for no reason, and I had started talking to myself, which at the time for me I thought I was genuinely having a conversation with someone. I might go with someone later about this but my friends have not talked to me in a while because I jumped out of a car and went missing for several days. It's been a hard while (By the way I jumped out of a car in the back seat, in a car that was going like ~5 ish mph but what startled my friend was that I just randomly started screaming and yelling out threats before running out into the city and not returning for a few days. CPS was called on my parents, I'm really hoping that they dont end up finding my account, or my posts.)

 

[Angst Filled Fuck Up]

Our conditions are sort of related as I suffer from depersonalization and derealization. Long story short, I feel like I've been sleepwalking/in a total daze for almost five years now. The key difference is that I never fully break from reality, though I flirt with it constantly.

I like stillnotsure's suggestion of grounding yourself. Also perhaps test yourself by mentally questioning how you got to be somewhere, what you did today, etc. See if you can come up with an accurate chronology of the day's events. Sometimes the brain confabulates - that is to say fills in any blanks with events or memories that never actually occurred. So fact checking things or asking a sympathetic third party what happened will also help.

 

[NumbItAll]

Our conditions are sort of related as I suffer from depersonalization and derealization. Long story short, I feel like I've been sleepwalking/in a total daze for almost five years now. The key difference is that I never fully break from reality.

I had that for a year or two (don't remember exactly how long because it was all a blur) and man it fucking sucks. Felt like I was living in 3rd person and just observing the world rather than being a part of it. I was in a constant state of panic and non functional because it was so unsettling. Never had any psychosis so unfortunately I can't help with that, but good luck @Politecat because it sounds like utter shit.